Angrrrrrrrrrrrr

In church recently, the pastor has been talking about emotions that get in the way of having peaceful, strong relationships with each other.  An interesting take on these emotions is that they generally result from a debt-debtor dynamic in the relationship.  For example, the emotion of the week is currently anger, and anger often results from a "you owe me" feeling.

I appreciate the chance to think about anger because it's something I feel fairly often, and I know that it's an emotion that can (and does) easily cause me to hurt people.  While I am not as explosive as I was as a teen, I find that when I am angry now, I do one of two things.  If I'm angry at you and I don't feel comfortable expressing that to you, I will likely keep my anger in and stew about the situation.  If I do feel comfortable expressing it to you (this would be you, dearest husband Matthew), then I am likely to express it through grouchiness, a bit of nastiness, and maybe an insult or two for good measure.

Neither of those reactions are particularly good because in one case, I am harming the relationship by holding onto really negative feelings.  In the other, I hurt Matthew through my words.

The pastor at our church talked about how in his experience (and through the verses Ephesians 4:31-32), he thinks that the answer to our anger lies in forgiveness.  I would add to this a healthy dose of compassion and understanding.  By forgiveness, he meant that we should figure out what we thought the person owed us, and then to consciously decide to cancel this debt.  This makes sense in my circumstances because my anger often stems from when I think people owe me respect, consideration, time, or thoughtfulness.  While someone may have legitimately wronged me, it is my choice to hang on to the anger.  The compassion and understanding come in because the action that caused anger may very well have been done without any intention of harm, or I may have misinterpreted an action or some words.

My anger for Matthew is generally spurred by the silly things.  I think that this is probably fairly typical for a married couple.  You might call the feeling "annoyance", but I think that it's a form of anger for me, at least.  He'll do little things in a way that seems totally wrong/illogical to me.  I can't even think of a specific example right now.  However, this little thing happening in a way that I don't want or expect, and I can be set off.  The thing is, though, that Matthew usually isn't even doing anything wrong, and I know that.  While some of the problems he could prevent by being more careful and thoughtful, many times I'm just expecting unreasonable things from him.  I think that another group of people who might experience our anger similarly is children.  I know that I'm going to get angry at my kids when I have them because I'm kind of a human being.  However, I think that it's good for me to start thinking about what should cause anger and what shouldn't.  For example, while a child might not always listen to me, I shouldn't automatically become angry.  Perhaps the child has a reason for not listening.  Perhaps I am expecting more from the child than he/she is able to handle.  While I'm not saying that I won't expect my kids to listen to me, I think that I will bear the responsibility of trying to fully understand each situation and not wrongfully accusing a child of being willfully disobedient.

I'm not going to say that I'm the best at forgiving people for things that they said or did.  I tend to replay conversations and events over and over in my head, and I can work up a good amount of anger doing this.  Even after realizing that I need to let things go, I can still try to pick things apart again later.  It's something I work on.

One thing that came up was the idea of reconciliation versus forgiveness without reconciliation.  I think that reconciliation is optimal, but I think that forgiveness can happen without reconciliation.  Sometimes I hold onto something little for so long, it's probably not even good to broach the subject any more because what is past is past, so I just need to forgive the person and move on.  However, sometimes I think it is totally appropriate to respectfully talk to a person about a problem in the hopes of coming to a reasonable agreement.  I personally think that this has to happen to keep a marriage as healthy as possible.  To me, it goes along with the vital need for open, respectful communication about pretty much everything.  Sometimes an agreement won't be met, and then the choice of forgiveness should be made.  Sometimes an agreement will happen, and forgiveness naturally occurs.

The pastor emphasized Ephesians 4:31 as it says to "get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior."  As such, he made it seem like the emotion of anger was to generally be avoided.  Maybe I misunderstood his intention though because I'm sure that he knows that Jesus expressed anger.  In fact, earlier in Ephesians 4, Paul writes that in our anger we should not sin.  Based on this, and the fact that verse 31 talks about "evil behavior", I feel fairly confident that we should not try to quell all anger but rather bear the responsibility for our actions and treatment of people.

In fact, I realized that I actually think that anger and discontent can be a good and healthy thing.  I think that it is good to get angry when people are being wronged.  I wrote a post last year about how I was angry as Wisconsin stripped their unions of their rights and power.  I thought of this as I considered this week's emphasis on anger, and I do not think that my anger was wrong.  In fact, I think that I had an appropriate response to my anger: Writing a blog post to express myself.  I honestly believe that it is appropriate to feel discontent and angry when people are being wronged, but we must always remain conscious of our actions.  If we use Paul's writings to justify complacency and lack of emotion for our fellow human beings, then I think we are missing the point.

I'd love to hear any other thoughts about anger that you might have!